


Several Notions season 2

by hophophop



Series: Several Notions [3]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Willy Wonka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2906009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/hophophop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"I’m about to disabuse you of several notions, so please: listen very carefully.”</em><br/>ficlets, drabbles, and prompt fills originally posted on tumblr over the course of season two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_"Language is evolving, Watson."_

\- - -

"No."

"Why must you persist in being limited by convention?"

Joan eyed him silently over the top of her glasses as they sat in the elevator _she’d_ suggested they halt mid-floor while they waited for the return of the suspect.

"You can’t expect me to abide by arbitrary rules determined before I was born."

"I’m pretty sure the publication date doesn’t matter in this case."

"Text shorthand wasn’t even a gleam in the creator’s eye then."

"Too bad. No acronyms — or initialisms, I know. Besides, I bet that one predates cell phones anyway. IMLTHO can’t be used in Scrabble."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/58328400258> \- fill for a request about scrabble. See also Sanguinity's brilliant response, [Score Q to 12](http://archiveofourown.org/works/928586)


	2. Chapter 2

**201\. Step Nine**  
Yes, she’d thought about it. Sherlock’s explanation for why not was accurate, if incomplete; past and present professional ethics made it impossible. That line was more than firm, for her; it was a lens refocusing everyone she met on the other side, screening all desire on her part. Liam was as close as she’d come, and while she couldn’t blame the outcome on having met him in a professional capacity first, it felt like a cautionary tale. Sherlock’s inane sibling rivalry only made her all the more grateful that the thought which followed was inevitably some variation of “god, no.”

 **205\. Ancient History**  
Her amusement was as short-lived as his panic, and she was frowning by the time she climbed the stairs. She shouldn’t be surprised by his surveillance; of course he had investigated her then. And she would call it surveillance rather than stalking; his intent hadn’t been control but rather avoiding being controlled himself. Still, not to know, all this time. Which led to wondering what else she had missed. Was still missing. Well, she was the detective now, and she had an extensive history of misdirection, diversion, and omission to examine. She already suspected she wouldn’t like the answers.

 **211\. Internal Audit**  
Marcus caught the looks when his right hand jerked and failed (Holmes’ voice in his head smirked ‘impotent’), so he took to bracing his arm between curled fingers jammed in his pocket — didn’t qualify as a fist — locked elbow pressed tight, and an awkwardly flexed shoulder that ached all the time now. Joan recommended a massage therapist from her surgeon days, specialized in injured arms or something, but after work he only wanted to forget. Captain said it wasn’t like there was a shortage of paperwork to push in the mean time. He didn’t know how mean the time was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a few episode drabbles for s2 when I thought I was going to try to continue the series as I did for s1.


	3. Chapter 3

She wonders where he is, sometimes, on fall nights when the moon is high and bright like that October evening more than a decade ago that she and Liam spent walking on the wide paved paths curling back and forth across the park, all the way from the reservoir to Columbus Circle.

Only rarely on bitter cold mornings when the wind bites through all four layers does she let herself worry where he might have ended up.

But it’s the torpid ache of August when the humidity is higher than the temperature and she can’t sleep for the heat at 3 a.m. that makes her wish she could have figured out how to bring him back when he first got so lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [image of Joan & Sherlock waiting for Liam](http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/73080726264), end of 109.


	4. Timebomb

_"So, what does that one do once it ticks down?"_

Joan sat on her bed in the dark, listening to the wind slip around the damper. Its whisper soothed her. Much better than the radio she’d long stopped using. The room carried a faint wood-burning odor, stronger when the library fireplace was lit. The sound and the smell were familiar companions now, often comforting, but sometimes pressing too close. Smoke marked danger. It could blind, choke, scar. Alone in her room, the boundary between comfort and threat blurred and shifted. Fire drew her in where the risk of burning smoldered like an ember and she could not turn away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/79379052400> for Joan Watson Wednesdays


	5. The Adventure of the Square Detective Who Looked Round

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> following [this conversation](http://sanguinarysanguinity.tumblr.com/post/97143777348/holmes-i-consulted-for-willy-wonka-for-almost-ten) about the gifset from the Elementary season 2 gag reel featuring the exchange:
>
>> Holmes: I consulted for Willy Wonka for almost ten years.  
> Watson: Well, so he’s the captain… [Lucy Liu:] Did you say Willy Wonka?

"A captain of industry, yes. And, well, I say ‘consulted,’ but really it was more of an undercover operation."

Watson looked up, trying to gauge whether he was joking. “Ten years undercover for  _candy_?”

"Chocolate has a long history of labour exploitation, stretching back through the colonial era. I suspected his company, and others, of benefiting from a range of unsavory practices."

"So to speak."

"Indeed. Bacon and salt were not yet a staple of gourmet confectioners’ offerings at the time. More prevalent was the secrecy shielding abusive worker conditions and unregulated testing on minors. It took some time to get to the bottom of it."

"From the tales of his extreme paranoia, I wouldn’t have imagined Wonka willing to cooperate, even for clemency."

"And you would be correct. He contacted me to consult on corporate espionage against his competitors, but that wasn’t the task I chose to undertake. In the end, he went down with the rest."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101212224198>: Ms. Hudson’s adventures finding Clyde in weird places in the house

They hadn’t met during the blizzard, but on [Leonora](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1813216/chapters/4276917)'s first formal visit, Clyde was the only resident of the brownstone at home to greet her. That he (confirmed with reference to Holmes' 1989  _Ernst & Barbour_) was corralled behind the library couch by stacks of books with titles beginning with “T” did not make him any less charming. He wasn’t always so artfully contained, however, and the brownstone was anything but well lit. The second time she almost set down a full bucket on his shell she determined to increase his visibility (not his core temperature, please) with bright knitted cozies.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101218155268>: Hard one: the conversation between Sherlock and Marcus over coffee at the end of 2x18 - awkward, friendly, was there conversation

They each had their own reasons for not wanting to enter the bar right away, Marcus got that. He wasn’t in the mood to say more about his, and for once Holmes didn’t leap at the chance to fill the silence with endless know-it-all crap. (Had to admit, that fun fact about pigs was a big hit with his teenaged cousins last Thanksgiving.) Half a cup of coffee later, Manny’s death finally felt like it fit inside him, wasn’t going to bust through his ribs. He nodded for the check.

Holmes offered a five, nervous. “May I, Detective?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101221576988>: College Joan taking Criminal Law 101 just for the credits and really enjoying it.

Junior year Joan was short a social science elective, and the only thing that didn’t conflict with lab, lab, the other lab, or her part-time job with her uncle’s construction company was CRML 101. The textbook cost half as much as her Molecular Bio and PhysChem ones did, a silver lining. She sat in the back of the large lecture the first day, waiting to be bored, chemistry notes open to prep for the likely pop quiz. But then the prof started telling a story she recognized halfway through as the plot of [Blood Simple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Simple), and she was hooked.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101222486808>: how about sherlock and joan getting stuck in an elevator together?

Under the eerie red emergency light, Joan shifted from one seat bone to the other in a vain attempt to get comfortable. Sherlock was trying to hack the stalled elevator’s control panel with her lock picks after she gave up 20 minutes ago. Her stomach grumbled; he shot an irritated glance to the side, but she was slightly behind him and out of its range. She cleared her throat, trying to be professional despite wanting to whine. All of a sudden he shifted back from his squat, settling heavily and making the elevator bounce a bit. And then it dropped.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101225554093>: Joan and Alfredo, the moment they realize they’ve both accepted that Sherlock isn’t coming back

Joan wasted two weeks attempting to decipher Sherlock’s note, convinced it was a test, his disappearance her doctoral defense before graduating _summa cum_ detective. Okay, a week wasted doing that, and another in denial. About a lot of things.

Alfredo appeared on day twelve after Sherlock missed three meetings, and she surprised herself by telling him everything. He sat quietly for a long time after, even for him.

"You were kidnapped, and his brother went off on a one-man witness protection program, and now Sherlock’s gone too." She nodded. "To test you?" His voice cracked, and she did too.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/101269007023>: Bell and Joan working a case involving the cast of an off-Broadway musical…and a skull.

"Wait. What?" Marcus shook his head. "No, I heard you. The play’s lead was stolen."

"It’s a musical, uh, a musical _Hamlet_ , with Hamlet played by a skeleton.”

"Of course, a singing — and dancing? Can’t have a musical without dancing — skeleton. So the bones are gone, or the contraption they use to animate it? How far off-Broadway is this?"

Joan sighed. “A friend of mine is the dramaturge. And no, it’s a skeleton on a stand; it doesn’t do anything. Hamlet’s lines are left out…”

Marcus just stared.

"Actually, only the skull’s missing. Free tickets if we find it."


End file.
